OK, What about when a guy goes down on me? (If he does) can he get oral herpes?? How likely will a guy catch herpes from a woman?? So many questions.. So confused and alone.
There is a video on You tube, I believe by Westover Heights Clinic, where a doctor is interviewed and he states the chances of transmission to a male giving a female oral is very low. This doctor is supposedly one of the top HSV researchers in the US. The name of the link is "Doctor answers questions about herpes (herpes opportunity).
I'm not a doctor obviously, but I have heard so much conflicting information regarding this topic.
General consensus seems to be that it's low risk from what I've read.
This is a question I would like to know the answer to so can you keep me posted on any information you find out ...thanks
To know methods and rates of transmission it's important to know what strain you have. If you haven't already, get a swab test done checking for hsv1 or hsv2, the newer your sore, more accurate the test so go quickly. Igg blood test can also tell you strain.
Rate of transmission of female to male is lower than male to female, regardless of oral or vaginal sex. From herpesite .org: "Risk of transmission for HSV-1 from the oral to the genital area is much higher than the risk of transmission of HSV-2 from the genital to the oral area. In addition, the recurrence and shedding rate for genital HSV-1 is much less than for HSV-2 – this is why getting a culture to determine the viral type can come in handy. And although HSV-2 can be transmitted to the mouth, because HSV-2 “prefers” the genitals, the recurrence rate of oral HSV-2 is statistically very low – about once every ten years."
Yep, that sounds right. I did mention the need to know type as well, but for some reason my reply was deleted!
Most transmissions in new discordant relationships occur within the first 3 months.
In longer-term monogamous heterosexual discordant couples where the negative partner is aware of the other's GH-positive status and where only sex during outbreaks is avoided (so no daily antiviral meds for suppressive therapy, and no regular condom usage), the annual transmission rate of HSV-2 from +male to -female is 10% vs 4% from +female to -male.
Suppressive therapy reduces the above by about half, so +male to -female = 5% and +female to -male = 2% per year.
With the addition of condoms, a further 30% (some say 50%) reduction can be achieved, so +male to -female = 2% and +female to -male = 1% per year.
It is worth noting that these figures are general and based on longer-term couples, presumably with more established infections. As noted above, a newly infected individual is more infectious during the first 3 months to a year. Specific sexual activities were not examined.
These transmission rates are for HSV-2. No similar study has been done for genital HSV-1, but the transmission risk in each of the above scenarios is even lower due to much less viral shedding. No studies have been done on discordant same-sex couples.